HEDE MASSING, 81 EX-SOVIET SPY WHO WAS WITNESS AGAINST HISS

Published: March 9, 1981

Correction Appended

Hede Massing, a former Viennese actress and confessed Soviet spy who testified against Alger Hiss at his second perjury trial, died yesterday of emphysema at her home on Washington Square. She was 81 years old.

Mrs. Massing was a former wife of Gerhart Eisler, who fled the United States in 1949 while facing charges of passport fraud and contempt of Congress. Mr. Eisler became chief propaganda spokesman and a member of the Central Committee of East Germany.

By her own account, Mrs. Massing was sent to the United States in 1933 by the Soviet intelligence service, conducted surveillance and wrote reports until she became disillusioned in 1937.

At Mr. Hiss's second trial for perjury in 1950, she was the only witness to offer testimony that purported to corroborate the accusations of Whittaker Chambers, a magazine editor, that Mr. Hiss, a former State Department official, had been a member of the Washington Communist underground.

Mrs. Massing testified that she had met Mr. Hiss at the home of Noel Field, a State Department employee later named as a Communist by Mr. Chambers. She told the court that she had bantered with Mr. Hiss over whose ''apparatus'' Mr. Field would belong to.

A defense witness contended that Mrs. Massing had told friends a different version of the conversation shortly before the trial began. Mr. Hiss testified and later wrote that he had never seen Mrs. Massing before the Federal Bureau of Investigation arranged for him to meet her.

Mr. Hiss was found guilty of perjury, was sentenced to five years in prison and was released in 1954. He has contended to this day that he was not guilty.

Mr. Field disappeared in Czechoslovakia in 1949 and was imprisoned there. He was released five years later and accepting political asylum in Hungary.

Mrs. Massing is survived by a brother, Walter Tune of Vienna.

Illustrations: Photo of Hede Massing and Gerhart Eisler

Correction: March 13, 1981, Friday, Late City Final Edition A photograph in The Times on Monday, accompanying the obituary of Hede Massing, former wife of Gerhart Eisler, was misidentified. It showed Mr. Eisler's second wife, Hilde Eisler.